Photo: Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
The Russian Defense Ministry shows pictures of the combat work of the T-80BVM tank crew of the Vostok troop group. In the battle for the liberation of a village in the south of Donetsk, in the direction of the special operation, he destroyed two American MaxxPro armored personnel carriers in close combat.
Objective aerial monitoring images show a T-80BVM tank flying towards the village. An enemy FPV drone breaks the silence. He hits the turret of our tank, but gets confused in the “tsar’s barbecue”. The explosion does not harm the crew. The next second, our Primorye soldiers shoot at two enemy armored vehicles at point-blank range.
“We drove quietly to the village, they walked quietly, the MaxxPro driver was sitting in the car. They saw our car, they were scared, they didn’t understand what was happening. We start working,” said the tank gunner-operator with the call sign “Raven.”
A tank commander with the call sign “Chapai” talks about the role of tanks in modern combat: “Before, it was tanks that crossed the front. Today, the attack drones detected the tanks.”
Today, our tankers most often work from closed positions, follow the adjustments of drone operators and accurately hit targets many kilometers from the front line. Therefore, a “tank biathlon” with two American armored vehicles is a rather rare event on the front line.
The tankers use trawl nets to lay corridors through the minefields, ensuring the advance of our assault units. And the tank armor is the main defense of an attack aircraft. They act bravely and decisively because they trust that they will not leave their own people in trouble. They will pick you up and take you. Under armor or over armor.
The consistency of the crew more than once helped the tankers in difficult situations on the battlefield.
In one of the night attacks, the crew of the Chapay tanks managed to avoid an anti-tank missile fired at them by the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the combat vehicle was trapped tangentially. Everyone survived and returned the car to service.
“They looked in one direction: the gunner and the tank commander, and I looked forward. I look, fly and immediately report. The tank commander says: “Gun at 30, recoil!” We returned to a safe place, we looked and everything was on fire… But nothing, they took care of us, did the job and came back the next night,” said the mechanic driver with the call sign “Mura.”
“Tsar barbecues reduce visibility, so we have to constantly improve the optics of the combat vehicle and install additional cameras,” adds the commander of a tank battalion with the call sign “Altai.”
